What You Need to Know About Asteroids and Meteors

Are asteroids radioactive? Will meteors impact telecommunications? Dr. Denton Ebel, from the American Museum of Natural History, joins the News Hub. Photo: NASA.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... the the ... the Astro adjusted missed me up this afternoon how close the call wasn't what telecommunications impact it will have back and mall ... right and right now on the New Saab good afternoon and welcome I'm Simon Constable ... to get some answers on the extra terrestrial rocks we have opted to enable was the curator of major rights of the mechanism of natural history here in York City the areas ... Tom thank you to bring that up to rival ... to do ... so ... the sun is the difference between a media rights and an asteroid we know that I'm a major eye as he did Hits Library at ... today and we also have an asteroid just missing with the up ... the asteroid ... is ... space rock orbiting the sun ... most of them are safely in their in their main belt between Mars and Jupiter traveling around the sun sun get gets swung inward by the gravitational force Jupiter ... primarily ... and ... indeed across the board of your nose of the dangerous ones potentially dangerous ... this one ... was special because we we scientists in general actually people in Spain saw its first ... saw ... last year and we knew it was going to come very close and that's great because we got some great up observations are ... now so it's not me to write this I mean if I won when it's hectic around a lot of ... all the radioactive ... Noll radioactive ... what's not radioactive whatsoever in fact ... the prices sees that the that concentrate radioactive elements like a radium and potassium going ... only acted really ... planets like Earth where we have a lot of water and tectonic activity and prices he's the concentrate specific elements ... in specific places ... and that's what makes some places on earth in fact naturally more radioactive than any place to go in the rest of the sources except of course the stock ... and I have so many strikes when you can you call them are only as good as the next question ... of what all great stuff that still will collect I try to live by Kiran much to ... so aam was telecommunications impacted when when this asteroid Lew very close to the up ... as far as I know there were no impact whatsoever ... we already had ... the the the scientific community that tracks the asteroids including this one when your customers had already told the communications companies ... about it ... and ... knew we knew the war between of course they or their satellites are ... then no harm done ... no no on going is good ... now we have seen in the movies of cable shooting down a asteroids and and Nietzsche writes is now possible can we do that ... well it depends how big your God is ... it depends what you mean by shooting down and shooting guns faces a sort of ... strange concept ... and frankly if we're issued at stores or break them up up would you rather be hit by Bhatia or oval ... hole that's about it ... I guess that's a tough choices net loss a little stubble one table one ... anyway will take away the day is we have to think about these things for the future of of of the civilization we live in ... to avoid paying any signs of a Delta able